


erosion

by sealestial



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, a reflection of keith's time in the desert and how he dealt with it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 19:26:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9672749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sealestial/pseuds/sealestial
Summary: He forgets what it’s like to not have red clay caked under his fingernails, forgets what it’s like to have consistent human company. Keith loses parts of himself to the dunes that roll like waves when the wind is strong, and finds himself missing things he’d once been unsure how to live without.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this can be a sort-of prequel to my other little drabble, dust, if you squint hard enough. thank you for taking the time to read!

Time has no meaning in the desert. There are days. There are nights. There are times in between when celestial beings hover on the horizon and Keith feels like he could disintegrate into the dust. He tries keeping track of the date at first, when the bruises from fistfights in military-sterile hallways still linger around his eyes, his ribs. But with the _tug_ that’s settled behind his lungs—with the urge to _go_ that has always beat in time with his heart, there’s no point. Months don’t matter when every day is dust, dust, _dust_ and rocks that make his palms bleed and old books that talk about carvings in older caves and bits and pieces of things thought long lost to the shifting sands.

The desert is hiding something. The desert is _calling_.

His hair gets long. He forgets what it’s like to not have red clay caked under his fingernails, forgets what it’s like to have consistent human company. Keith loses parts of himself to the dunes that roll like waves when the wind is strong, and finds himself missing things he’d once been unsure how to live without. The fire in his belly, the one that’s been burning since his father since the orphanages since the schools since the Garrison, is banked. It’s embers. There isn’t anything to try for in the desert; there is no longer a chance at the stars he now gets an uninterrupted view of every night. There’s nothing but the _tug._ The _something_ pulling him out and out—away from the shack and his failures and the dreams he once brushed the tips of his fingers against.

The _something_ is calling. Keith answers. Keith _goes._

He gets to know the desert, the half-mountains that erupt through the sand in peaks that are constantly being eroded. With a ratty bandanna he’d found in the shack covering his mouth and nose, he explores. And he _finds._

The cave’s carvings are old, he can see they are, but the _something_ tells him that they’re older than himself, his species. Humanity only developed agriculture around ten thousand years ago. Maybe the _something_ is telling the truth.

From what the old books tell him, it is.

And Keith has always believed in aliens but ancient carvings that, when decoded, tell of an arrival that is maybe months away could not have been made by newly ‘modern’ humans just learning how to farm. It’s impossible, he thinks, and something like certainty sparks the embers that sit in the bottom of his stomach. It’s impossible, he knows, but even checking and double-checking leads him to the same conclusion.

He can feel the tug behind his lungs lurch forward in anticipation when he speeds across the desert to the nearest town and ask for the date.

 _Tomorrow_ it whispers.

_tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow—_

Tomorrow becomes today, and Keith straddles his hoverbike and feels the tug and he _flies._ The half-wild boy-become-man rides toward the sunset. He rides toward the stars.

And Keith finds what it is he’s been searching for.

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is [here](https://sealestial.tumblr.com/) if you'd like to chat!


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